JLAFFRARIAN GOVERNMENT. 213 
In enforcing their orders, and to aid them 
by their counsels in matters of difficulty, each 
chief is assisted and supported by ten counsel- 
lors, selected from the eldest, most experienced, 
and most acute of the tribe. These are called 
" Pakati" and always accompany the chief on 
expeditions of importance. They stand around 
and prompt him, by their counsel, at an inter- 
view with an embassy, and they usually spend 
most of their time in, or around, his hut. Some 
of these sages are very handsome, their hair 
and beards being quite grey, and figures bent 
with age ; whilst the steady penetrating gaze, 
the piercing vivacity of their eyes, and the 
wonderful craft and practised cunning, with 
which they are ready, at any emergency, to 
help their "Inkose" shews how deservedly they 
occupy the positions of honor which they fill. 
In the counsels of the Kaffirs, ability and ta- 
lent are quite as common, and are esteemed 
quite as important as power or wealth, as qua- 
lifications for their barbarous statesmen. 
Their laws of tribal government are most 
remarkable, being purely monarchial and con- 
servative in their code* And, wild and barbarous 
as these people are, their political arrangements, 
adopted from the expediency of barbarism, bear 
a most striking similarity to the more civilized 
polity ; which, for so many years past, has go- 
